Immediately after World War I, Britain still had the world's largest and most powerful navy, followed by the United States and, more distantly, by Japan, France and Italy. The British Royal Navy interned the defeated German High Seas Fleet in November 1918. The Allies had differing opinions concerning the final disposition of the Imperial German Navy, with the French and Italians wanting the German fleet divided between the victorious powers and the Americans and British wanting the ships destroyed. The negotiations became mostly moot after the German crews scuttled most of their ships on June 21, 1919.

News of the scuttling angered the French and the Italians, with the French particularly unimpressed with British explanations that the fleet guarding the Germans had then been away on exercises. Nevertheless, the British joined their allies in condemning the German actions, and no credible evidence emerged to suggest that the British had collaborated with the Germans with respect to the scuttling. The Treaty of Versailles, signed a week later on June 28, 1919, imposed strict limits on the sizes and numbers of warships which the newly-installed German government had the right to build and maintain.

The Americans, British, French, Italians, and Japanese had been allies during World War I, but with the German threat seemingly finished, a naval arms race between the allies seemed likely. US President Woodrow Wilson's administration had already announced successive plans for the expansion of the US Navy from 1916 to 1919 that would have resulted in a massive fleet of 50 modern battleships.

In response, the Japanese Diet in 1920 finally authorized construction of warships to enable the Imperial Japanese Navy to attain its goal of an "eight-eight" fleet program, with eight modern battleships and eight battlecruisers. The Japanese started work on four battleships and four battlecruisers, all of which were much larger and more powerful than those of the classes that they were replacing.

The 1921 British Naval Estimates planned four battleships and four battlecruisers, with another four battleships to follow the subsequent year.

The new arms race was unwelcome to the American public. The US Congress disapproved of Wilson's 1919 naval expansion plan, and the 1920 presidential election campaign resulted in politicians in Washington resuming the non-interventionism of the prewar era, with little enthusiasm for continued naval expansion.  Britain also could ill afford the exorbitant cost of capital ships.

In late 1921, the US became aware that Britain was planning a conference to discuss the strategic situation in the Pacific and Far East regions. To forestall the British plan and to satisfy domestic demands for a global disarmament conference, Warren Harding's administration called the Washington Naval Conference in November 1921.*

*Background of the Washington Naval Treaty from Wikipedia. 

- Chapter  1 - World War I Battleship Development
- Chapter  2 - The Washington Naval Treaty
- Chapter  3 - Super-Battleship Construction
- Chapter 4 -  The Adaptability of the Super-Battleships

There is also a section on "Further Reading" and an Index.

There are lots of period drawings, photos and a number of illustrations, as well as numerous tables.  The illustrations reange from profile views of the planned ships to some more dramatic "in-action" scenes.  There is also a two page cutaway drawing of the planned, but never started British N3 battleship, spread across two pages.

I read this book from cover to cover and found some inconsistencies and what I think may be factual errors.  Some examples:

Page 11: The author mentions that the G3 battlecruiser were going to be named after the patron saints of the UK:  St George, St. Patrick, etc, though he also mentioned they "may" have also been named after the World War 1 battlecruiser (Invincible, etc).  He contradicts this later in the book, stating the G3 class ships would have been named after the WW1 battlecruiser, then names the N3 cutaway as "HMS St Greorge".  (From what I had read previously , the plan was that the G3s would have been named after previous battlecruisers and the N3s after the patron saints). 

Page 18:  The author states that the Akagi was to be scrapped, but was instead converted to a carrier because of the damage to Amagi.  In fact, both Akagi and Amagi were going to be converted, until Amagi was damaged in dry-dock during an earthquake.  Kaga was then converted instead (he gets this correct on page 37).

Page 22:  He speaks of the "four twin turrets of Oklahoma and Nevada".   Oklahoma and Nevada has 2 twin turrets, but also two triple gunned turrets. 

Once you find errors and inconsistencies like this, you start to think "What else is wrong?".  

The illustrations are mostly well done, but on page 31, there is a painting of a fictional US fleet at sea, with a Lexington-class battlecruiser, with a Saratoga as a carrier, and a South Dakota class battleship.  The problem is that the South Dakota in the art work is BB-57, NOT BB-49, which was the class started, but never completed.  That is really poor editing. 

This is Super-Battleships of World War I, The Lost Battleships of the Washington Treaty, by Angus Konstam.  Published by Osprey Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4728-6690-5.   The book retails for $20.0, and is available to order online.  I purchased mine from Amazon.